Download FAQ

or
Are You Having A Problem Downloading?

Mirror Site is Not Operational

For some reason, the mirror site is no longer accepting http connections.
I have no idea how long this problem will last.

Before I answer a couple of the common questions, you need to know that there
is currently a 15 user FTP limit. This means that only 15 users can download a
file from the FTP area, where all of the master videos are stored.

The FTP area is the only place from which to download files for 20th Century
Fox programs.

Many of the latest MPEG videos are also available on a HTTP
mirror site, which currently has a limitation of 1000 users.
What is not available are any videos containing material
that originates from 20th Century Fox produced shows or Fox Network promos.
The total bandwidth available is unlimited.

When I do a FTP, why does it tell me that I need a username and
password, or that the login request was denied?

If you are getting a message on your screen that says that you need a
username and password when you try and download a MPEG video file,
you are probably using MicroSh!t Windoze,
since it appears to not tell you the truth.
There isn't anything I can do about it giving you the wrong message.

More than likely you are getting this error because the 15 user limit
has been reached.
The problem is that you have to log in as anonymous before the system
can determine that the 15 user limit has been reached.
There is nothing you can do in this case, except to keep trying.

When I try and do a download from the HTTP mirror it
tells me that access is denied? Why?

The HTTP mirror has a 1000 user limit. When that limit is reached, the
access denied message is sent out, along with information that the user
limit has been reached. But, some programs, like GetRight, do not display
all of the message. The wget program for Unix doesn't display all of the
error message either.

So, if you get this error message, just keep trying.

The download never finishes or stalls. How come?

You are probably trying to download using MicroSh!t Windoze and IE and you
left-clicked on the MPEG movie link.
Bill Gates, and his minions, believe that when you left-click on a movie link,
the file is supposed to be streamed to your computer. Because of that,
Media Player is started and the download started. Unfortunately, MPEG movies
are not streamable. You have to download them first to your computer's hard
drive and then play them. For both IE and Netscape, you have to right-click on
the link and do a "Save As..." option. If you are on a Mac, click and hold to
get the option. Unix users also should right-click Netscape.

The download is slow. How come?

Even though I have a MVDSL connection (768kbps up/640kbps down), the number
of users downloading files and web pages saturates the bandwidth and causes
the amount of data to an individual user to be split among all of the users.
Sorry for the inconvienience.

Hints and Suggestions

If you are using MicroSh!t Windoze, use a program like
Get Right to do the
download for you. You can set it up so that it will continue to try until it
gets the file and if for some reason the download is started and not completed,
it will attempt continue from where it left off when it tries again (instead
of starting the download over).

If you are using Unix/Linux, use wget.

If you are using a Mac, get
Download
Deputy.
Supported protocals are HTTP, HTTP (secured/encrypted), and FTP. The
unregistered version batches up to four downloads and picks up where it
left off. It can also fetch URLs from Netscape and IE bookmark files.
It can also schedule the downloads, terminate the PPP connection when
finished and shutdown the machine.